Radiohead Online Experiment and Offline Sale: In Rainbows Sells 3m Units and 1.75 Million CDs
This story was written by Patrick Smith.
Radiohead's pioneering pay-what-you-like In Rainbows album was bought 3 million times and sold more physical CD copies than the band's last two records despite being available online for free for almost three months. That startling fact came from from Jane Dyball, head of business affairs at music label Warner Chappell which licensed all digital and recording rights for the band, according to musically.com and MediaGuardian. Speaking at the You Are In Control conference in Iceland today, she revealed that despite being available for free online the record still sold 1.75 million physical copies in the UK and US. By contrast 2001's Amnesiac sold 900,000 copies and 2003's Hail to the Thief shifted 990,000 copies. The band even managed to make 4 million from the 100,000 people that bought the lavish In Rainbows boxed set at 40 each.
Before anyone could buy a physical CD copy, income from In Rainbows as a (potentially free) digital download was higher than the band's entire previous digital sales income and made more money than Hail to the Thief did in all formats. Before In Rainbows the band had refused to put their music on iTunes, but these are still impressive stats. And the 3 million overall sales figure does not include the free downloads, so the actual audience that now owns the album is much higher meaning that some 1.2 million fans will have paid to have seen the band live by the time their tour finishes.
Dyball confirms what the big music labels had believed, or feared: it was a resounding success for all involved. But according to musically.com, despite their arty silence on the issue, Radiohead were monitoring the daily average price of the digital download while it was available and were prepared to pull the plug on the whole thing if it got too low.
By Patrick Smith